Russian Mission, AK — There are no survivors after a mid-air plane collision Wednesday morning, six miles west of Russian Mission.

Alaska State Troopers in Bethel were notified of a crash at 11:08 A.M. on Wednesday. Medics, an Alaska State Trooper helicopter, and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) personnel from Anchorage responded to the scene.

Alaska State Trooper Public Information Officer Megan Peters says Troopers will be joining NTSB investigators at the crash site. “They will be focusing on recovering the victims, while NTSB will focus on the investigation and the cause and circumstances of the collision.”

A RAVN C208 Caravan aircraft flying from Russian Mission to Marshall with three people on board, and a Renfro’s Alaska Adventure Super Cub carrying two people from Bethel to a hunting camp were involved in the crash.

Clint Johnson is the Alaskan Regional Chief for the Office of Aviation Safety. He says that “both airplanes came to rest about roughly half a mile (or) three quarters of a mile away from each other.” The NTSB is working with two accident sites. “The topography in the area makes it very, very challenging for not only the Alaska State Troopers but for our teams as well, so we are going to be there for a while. This will not be a one day job by any stretch of the imagination.”

Rescue personnel have confirmed five fatalities: two pilots, 48-year-old Harry Wrase of Wasilla and 44-year-old Zach Babat of Montana, as well as three passengers, 21-year-old Aaron Jay Minock of Russian Mission, 32-year-old Steven Andrew of Kenai, and 40-year-old Jeff Burruss of Haines.

As of eleven o’clock Thursday morning, NTSB is sending three investigators to the crash sites to determine the sequence of events and assist in recovering the five victims.

]]>24815NTSB Calls for “Urgent” Audit of Hageland Aviation and Ravn Operatorshttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/05/01/ntsb-issues-urgent-audit-of-hageland-aviation-and-ravn-operators/
Fri, 02 May 2014 01:49:18 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=8730After six aircraft accidents in 19 months—including two fatal plane crashes near St. Mary’s and Kwethluk since November—the National Transportation Safety Board is taking the unusual step of urging the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct an audit of Hageland Aviation and other air operators falling under the Ravn Alaska banner. NTSB Alaska Chief Clint Johnson…]]>

After six aircraft accidents in 19 months—including two fatal plane crashes near St. Mary’s and Kwethluk since November—the National Transportation Safety Board is taking the unusual step of urging the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct an audit of Hageland Aviation and other air operators falling under the Ravn Alaska banner.

NTSB Alaska Chief Clint Johnson said the board’s seven-page letter to the FAA lays out an “urgent” recommendation to review operations by HoTH, Inc., the parent company of Hageland and Ravn Alaska, formerly Era Alaska.

Johnson said the NTSB’s investigations in fatal and non-fatal crashes dating from mid-2012 found Hageland operators allowed flights to be released without knowing all of the risks involved in particular flights, had deficiencies in training and qualifications, and had 11 documented compliance failures.

Preliminary investigations link all three of those issues to the Hageland crash in St. Mary’s last November. Johnson said the board was set to appeal to the FAA after that crash, but waited for Hageland to work out a solution.

“Right after the St. Mary’s accident we were contemplating issuing this recommendation,” Johnson said, “but Hageland and the FAA got together and came up with the operational control center. We elected to go ahead and not make the recommendation at the time.”

The control center, located in Palmer, provides oversight and management for the company’s flights statewide. Despite what Johnson calls monumental changes for the better, Hageland lost two more pilots in another fatal crash just last month.

“Unfortunately, just a short time after (the decision to wait on the recommendations was made), they had another fatal accident,” Johnson said, “which caused us to go ahead and institute the urgent recommendation.”

Without any regulatory authority, the NTSB can only recommend that the FAA act. To that end, they’re calling on the agency to bring an investigative team from outside Alaska to look at Hageland’s operations, policies, and procedures.

But Johnson said the board’s letter doesn’t stop there: it’s also asking the FAA to review itself.

“The second part of the recommendation would be (to have) an outside entity, an FAA entity, outside the state of Alaska, to look at the policies, procedures, and effectiveness of the FAA as far as their oversight abilities.”

That oversight includes inspector qualifications, turnover, and workload. The letter specifically highlights a lack of staffing at the FAA-run Anchorage Flight Standards District Office, which the letter states was denied staffing increases over two years during which “several accidents” occurred, including the St. Mary’s crash.

“That was some of the items that came out of various interviews that we did as an area to look at,” Johnson said. “As far as the final determination, as far as if the staffing levels were adequate, we’ll leave that up to the FAA and this third-party team to take a look at.”

Johnson called the urgent recommendations “very rare,” and is an action he has not seen in his 17 years with the NTSB in Alaska.

The NTSB said it’s looking for a response from the FAA within 30 days, but in a statement released Thursday, FAA spokesperson Allen Kenitzer said the FAA “began increased surveillance of Hageland Aviation in 2011 … before the NTSB issued its recommendations.”

Kenitzer’s statement stated the the FAA “decided to send an audit team from outside Alaska to look at the carrier and the FAA’s oversight.” He wrote that the team was on-site this week and is made up of “highly experienced inspectors with many years of experience auditing carriers and FAA certificate management team activities.”

Kenitzer said the FAA will review the NTSB’s recommendations within 90 days.

Ravn Alaska CEO Bob Hajdukavich was traveling Thursday, but said in a brief statement that the NTSB’s request for an audit is “a step behind our own work.” He said Ravn is in the process of completing an independent audit of Hageland.